The Last Eight
by Silver Weasley
Summary: There is still so much they do not understand. A series of rough character sketches during the final battle.
1. The True Gryffindor

**The Last Eight**

Disclaimer: Not mine. Hers. points to JK

**Summary: **_There is still so much they do not understand. _A series of rough character sketches during the Final Battle.

**The True Gryffindor. **

He cannot remember a time when he was not this way. It was always the same—he was the clumsy, the dimwitted, the slow. He has never been clever like Hermione or funny like Ron or so very brave like Harry. He has never been able to charm the girls like Seamus or draw like Dean or play Quidditch like any of them—and he has never been able to see things the way Luna sees them, the way she seems so utterly unfazed by what everybody thinks, how she only cares if she understands what she says.

He is not special. He is just Neville—not-quite pudgy, getting a bit taller now, still as gawky as ever: and he will never be good enough. He remembers the Hat and it's debate about where to put him. "So sweet," it had mused. "So very sweet and loyal. You're one who won't let your friends down, dear, oh, that I'm sure of it. Yes, Hufflepuff it'll be." But then the Hat had stopped short, had seemed to be looking even more deeply at Neville. "Oh, my," it had said even more softly in his ear. "Oh, my _dear. _Would you look at that." And the next thing he knew, the Hat was bellowing, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Well, nobody was more surprised then him. Gran had been so pleased, but he just couldn't understand it. What was it the Hat had seen, what had it understood that he did not? He was not brave! Gryffindors were _brave, _that was the entire point of the whole damn house. He was not. Everybody knew that. Of course, there had been the time he had gone to the Ministry in his fifth year, but he had not faced Voldemort—oh, he would have simply died on the spot if he had had to, he just knew he would have.

But it doesn't matter now, any of that. He is standing on a desolate, barren field that used to be the Forbidden Forest, and he _still has his wand. _There are seven people standing next to him. They are the last ones not wounded or dead. Around them, he sees the remaining Death Eaters back away, and a tall figure strides forward. Neville does not have to be told who this figure is. He knows. The deep-set red eyes, hollow and terrifying, stare out at them, and though Neville is gripping his wand so hard his knuckles are white, he is not scared. The figure raises its wand. Simultaneously, so do the last Eight. Him or us. It's not about fear anymore.

And as spells begin flying everywhere for the millionth time that night, Neville is still not afraid, but is blocking and cursing and yes, even killing—and he is doing it to save people he loves. And perhaps, he realizes as something hits him hard in the side, and he is blinded by pain, _this _is why he is a Gryffindor, really a true Gryffindor. It's not about being brave every single second of his life. It's about being brave for the moments when other people need him to, and doing it without a second's hesitation.

Yes. Perhaps that was it all along.

**ooo**

Reveiws would be greatly appreciated. Next up: No Nonsense.


	2. No Nonsense

**No Nonsense. **

A Ravenclaw's life is not an easy one. Luna didn't expect many in the other Houses realized that, but this was the case. When you are put into Ravenclaw, you are put there with the understanding that you will make the best grades in the castle, set an example to follow, and do it cheerfully. You will love your books more than your food, your teachers will be your best friends, and you will go onto become either a teacher yourself or a high-ranking Ministry official. That is the Ravenclaw standard. Luna Lovegood fell sharply below expectations.

Nobody quite understood how she had ended up in the middle of a bunch of scholars—she was more of a dreamer, a Hufflepuff, _really, _they whispered. She would have been odd either way, but it would've been far more acceptable if she was doing it with the lesser mortals of Hogwarts. Ravenclaws had standards, they had _good grades_, and while Luna always passed her tests and did her homework, the fact that nobody ever witnessed her studying was more annoying than ever. Luna was not like them, she knew that, and it did not phase her. Daddy had taught her that life was about believing in what is important to you, and never mind what those other people think.

She was a loner by nature, but when a person was kind to her for a change, it tended to make her entire day. Her fourth year had been a turning point—that was when that nice Ginny Weasley had introduced her to Harry Potter. He was the bravest boy Luna had ever met, and through him, she met Neville Longbottom. Neville was much like her, she recognized at once. He was a Gryffindor, but nobody understood why—and oh, dear, just look at that poor boy _try!—_and she had heard people say he would've been better off in Hufflepuff. Well, she and Neville could be outcasts together—she supposed HE wouldn't mind listening about the Crumple-Horned Snorcacks and their possible extinction. He looked _very nice. _

And he was very nice. Neville Longbottom was Luna's first and only real friend. He did not mind that she was odd, and they liked each other's company. He made her…laugh. And turn very red, sometimes. Luna was not very serious about many things, and she had never had a friend before to be very protective of, but she had lately become very, very scared of losing Neville, and she was very, very worried about what would happen when they fought in this war. If they fought in this war.

Which is why she screamed. She hadn't meant to, she really hadn't, but she saw Neville fall when the spell hit him, and she screamed so hollowly and horribly Ron Weasley spun around on his heel to see what had happened to her. Luna ran to Neville, her tangled dirty blonde hair whipping around her as she dodged a red jet of light.

"Neville," she gasped, falling to her knees beside him, and grasping for his hand. "Hello, Neville. Neville, please." His eyes flickered open, but they were strangely cloudy.

"Oh, Luna." He saw her, and he smiled. He smiled even as somebody screamed in pain in the distance, and a violent bang erupted throughout the field. His hand slipped clumsily to her cheek and stayed there. She covered it with her own, staring at him desperately.

"Neville. Please. Just breathe."

"No more nonsense now, Luna," he murmured, his eyes seeming to fade. "There's nothing for it."

"No," she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek. "No nonsense. Never any nonsense." He did not respond.

And then for reasons she could not quite begin to fathom, Luna Lovegood held his hand to her cheek, and for the first real time in her life that she could remember, she sobbed.

**ooo**

Once again, dears, review please! Coming soon to a very roughly compiled story near you: Second-Best.


	3. Second Best

**Second-Best.**

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was as stubborn as hell, but once you were Ron Weasley's friend, you were his friend for life. It didn't matter how many petty little fights you had with him, it didn't matter what you did to him—once you forged that bond, he didn't let go of it, and he didn't back off. Oh, he may have had the emotional range of a teaspoon, but it didn't matter. If there was one thing Ron understood, you did not let a person down. Well, ok, he had done that before—he was very prone to go scarlet whenever his fight in the fourth year with Harry was brought up, not to mention all he had done to Hermione—but it didn't last, and he always owned up and made good for what he'd screwed over.

He was used to being second-best—hell, he was used to be next-to-last best, or not even best at all, thanks to his enormous family. He hated the expectations everybody had of him: it was either you were just another Weasley brother, or you were simply not good enough. There was no in between. Was Ron different from the others? Maybe. He sometimes liked to think so. Maybe he was brave, braver than Charlie even, because he never said no to a battle with Harry. Maybe he was clever, smarter than the twins—he got better marks. He was a _prefect. _Not like Percy, obviously. But who cared about Percy anyways?

It was the "second-best" thing that made it easy—and well, maybe all the more hard, to be truthful—to be Harry Potter's best mate. Everybody knew Harry, he was _so _famous and popular, and oh—see that tall kid with the red hair? He's Harry Potter's best friend. Yeah, lucky, that one.

Well, Ron couldn't very well go off and say they were wrong, now could he?

Because it was true: he was lucky. Harry was one of the best friends a bloke could have—loyal and funny and brave and…just _Harry. _He was like one of Ron's own brother's for God's sake. And then Hermione—he could go on forever about her, about her kindness, her intelligence, her sarcasm and wit and overall wonderfulness. She was more than his best friend, better than a sister. She was…she was something to him he couldn't even begin to work out. All he knew was that Harry, Hermione—he would die for them, and they would die for him, and right now it was his job to make sure that both of them were ok, because if you were Ron Weasley's friend, nobody messed with you except Ron Weasley.

A scream, piercing and ethereal, startled Ron as he toed the body of the Death Eater he had just killed. He looked round and saw Luna Lovegood staggering towards Neville Longbottom's fallen form, looking so ragged and horrified, Ron hardly recognized her. He deflected a curse that some foul evil git shot towards her, and furiously rounded on the Death Eaters, mentally damning them for doing this to Luna. To everybody. For God's sake, there were only seven left standing now, and—

"RON!"

Hermione. That was Hermione. Panicked, he scrambled towards where her voice had come from, his wand raised to block off spells. He found her furiously blocking spells—she was never much good on offense—tears streaming down her face. Death Eaters surrounded her, leering and grabbing at her. Ron acted so fast, he hardly dared believe it was him shooting all those spells. One huge bang cleared out at least five of them. Hermione elbowed her way over to Ron, dirty and teary-eyed, and whispered,

"You."

"Hi, Hermione."

And then she put her arms around him and hugged him so hard he thought he might forget to breathe.

"Thank you," she murmured to him. "You are truly what I live for, Ron." And then they backed away from each other, and he felt for a moment, that if this was being second-best, he did not mind it in the least.

**ooo**

_Review, please, please, please! Coming up next: Between the Lines. _


	4. Between the Lines

**Between the Lines.**

For Hermione Granger, it was all about logic. For example, she had _known _there was no such thing as magic; she was a smart girl. That sort of thing belonged in the fairy stories her father used to read her at bedtime. That was why when the strange owl came with the letter to Hogwarts, her entire system got a sort of electrical shock. Suddenly, all the things Hermione had been taught, had been absolutely _sure _of, were being challenged. She was a witch? She could do _magic? _What had happened to her world, and where had all the sanity gone?

But as she became immersed in it, she grew to love it. Grew to love the people in it, too—the quirky teachers, the students who laughed in the corridors between classes, and her best friends, the best, only friends Hermione had ever had. She loved the books, the spells, the classes—and she was good at all of them. She had never been stupid, never anything less than her very best, but here, it was if she were a flower being allowed to bloom—in all of her Muggle schools, any "special talents" she had, she had restrained, scared of being too different, too strange.

She learned so much at Hogwarts—about spells and magic and the world in which she belonged. But mostly, she learned about reading between the lines. She had to do it all the time. She did it with Snape: he did not write a scathing comment at the top of her paper, therefore, he was pleased with her work, but would not dare say so. She did it with the House Elves: well, honestly, they couldn't very well SAY they wanted pay if they had been taught that they were no good, could they? And most of all, most of all with anything, she did it with Ron: he called her a know-it-all, but he smiled at her like that. He said he'd rather do _anything _than study this stupid stuff, so he sat with her by the fire and they talked.

Yes, they all taught her a lot, more than they knew. Harry was literally her brother, the one boy she knew who loved her completely platonically, unconditionally, and without trepidation. He did not fear death, and he taught her not to fear it either, but merely to look at it, as Dumbledore had once said, "as the next great adventure." Ron was a different story—she did not understand her feelings for him, or his for her, but she did know that she loved the redheaded idiot, and she wouldn't ever stop.

And that was why when she had been surrounded, it had been the first natural thing for her to call out to him. Not to Harry, The-Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, but for Ron. Her Ron. And he came, just like she had always known he would. They had flown in separate directions now, and Hermione was glad of it—she could not bear to be near him, and not hold him, not sob over him, not have him assure her everything was all right…

"Hermione!" She jumped, startled out of her reverie, to see Ron in front of her again, his eyes panicked.

"Ron? What—? I thought we just…?"

"I'm not leaving you again," he said firmly, his face so white Hermione could hardly bear it.

"What happened, Ron?" she whispered. "What did you see?" He shook his head wordlessly, looking away from the left. Hermione turned, and stared. It appeared that Remus had found Tonks. Tonks was not moving; she was ghostly pale. Like death. She had been there for a long, long time.

_"Dead,_" Ron whispered. Remus stayed over Tonks, and let out a piercing howl, chilling and simultaneously heartbreaking. Hermione had never wanted to cry more than she did now. Remus exploded to his feet, rage distorting his features, his wand shooting spells haphazardly left and right.

"Ok," Hermione whispered, backing up with Ron as they spotted more Death Eaters. "We'll stay together."

Ron wanted to make sure she was safe, because if he didn't, he could not live with himself.

Hermione always _had _been good at reading between the lines.

**ooo**

_Reviews? Please? Next: Overlooked. _


	5. Peace

Disclaimer: Not mine. Hers. :points to JK:

**A/N: **Yeah, it's taken me awhile to update this, mostly because of lack of reviews. Also, I found it hard to write Remus, but once inspired, there's no stopping me. So, here you have it. Next up, I believe, will be Snape.

**Peace.**

Remus remembered the first time he'd transformed with a clarity that scared him. He was a boy then, small and pale and bookish, and he'd known it was coming; everybody had known it was coming: the first time he really stopped being…_human. _His parents told him it changed nothing, that they still loved him and wouldn't stop, but Remus had seen something in their eyes that even at his young age he knew was unbridled fear. For what, he didn't know—the way he might be treated? If he would get an education? Worry about his future? Terror, even,…of him? None of those options appealed to him, and he retreated farther and farther into himself, waiting for the full moon and the horror it might bring.

It had started with a strange, anxious sensation. He was so wound up, he was jittering, his skin shining sickly with perspiration. His parents had taken him to a secluded wood, one far away from town where he couldn't eat anything except animals. His mother wept to leave her son alone in what would surely become suffocating darkness, and his father tensely suggested they stay—but Remus wouldn't hear of it.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispered, already feeling a strange, gnawing pain his gut. "Please, just go._" _His parents stared at him; his mother reached out to touch his cheek, and Remus had jolted angrily, almost…almost _growling. _The look on his mother's face haunted him to this day. Her eyes brightened with tears and for the first time in his life, he saw agony in his mother's gentle gaze.

"All right," his father had agreed, staring apprehensively up at the sky, wincing as dusk left and night began to set in. "We'll be back first thing in the morning, son. Please…be…" He searched for the proper word. "…careful. We love you."

"I love you, too," Remus whispered, now feeling horribly sick, every muscle in his body tensed. When they Apparated away, he wanted to sob like the child he was, but the pain would not allow him even that. He nervously paced a section of the forest, feeling dizzy and odd. And then, it hit him as the first light of the moon shone through the trees. He crashed backwards, screaming and sobbing in intense pain and a strange rage. It was as though somebody was stabbing him over and over again with a blunt sword—his hands were ripping themselves apart, his hair was on fire, his spine was being twisted like a pretzel, he could not see, could think only of the pain and of fury, the horrible, animal-like _fury _that he was being made to endure this. He made to scream again, but it did not come out the way it always had—he howleda long, echoing howl that came from the pit of his stomach, the anger that twisted there, the need to kill something, and kill it _now. _

He could not remember anything more than that, because he suspected after that, sweet, innocent, sensitive Remus had been gone, replaced by the monster brought out only by the moon. When his parents had found him in the morning, they had been horrified—he was unconscious, lying spread-eagled on his back in the center of the clearing they'd left him in, and he was covered in blood and bruises. And it had to be said: most of that blood did not belong to him.

His life had revolved around that monthly transformation well into his years at Hogwarts. When his friends had worked it out and understood what he was, they had joined him, shape shifting and breaking laws—and Remus hadn't had to endure the pain alone anymore. His head was clearer when Sirius was padding along beside him, grunting and growling at him in a gruff reassurance. He could retain some sanity when James was galloping around him, daring the werewolf to try and catch him. He felt lighter and happier when Peter darted between all of them, squeaking energetically and keeping tabs on the three. The pain did not fade, it never had, but everything seemed simpler when his friends were there, when they showed they cared every time they risked Azkaban for him.

Yes, the pain of being a werewolf was a terrible one. Remus would never deny that.

But that torture—it was nothing compared to this.

It meant nothing, absolutely _nothing _when, after a panicked attempt to find her, he saw her cold face, once so cheerful and beautiful. This pain—this overwhelming, agonizing, furious pain—came from Nymph's hand, still curled loosely around her wand, came from her once vibrant hair now limp and dirty, came from her staring eyes and spirit and everything that made her his Tonks simply…gone. Remus had lost a lot: his humanity, the three only and best friends he'd ever had (two to death, and one to the Dark Side), and he'd lost the single woman he'd ever allowed himself to love, the only woman, he suspected, who would ever see past the monster he was, and love _Remus. _

And he had had enough, he had enough loss and enough hurt and enough of losing anybody who ever mattered. He was fucking sick and tired of the ache that came from being Remus fucking Lupin, and he could still not believe that he would never hear her voice again or hold her to him and breathe in her scent.

So Remus became the beast then, abandoning his humanity at last and killing. He was howling and killing and avenging her, and he was _happy. _He was happy to see those Death Eaters die, happy to let _them _hurt for once. And then, something funny happened—something he had almost expected. There was a blinding flash of green light, and he crashed backwards, almost as he had done all those years ago. He could hear a faint voice saying, "Professor, no!" (was it Hermione, that voice?) and he was falling, he was floating, he was weightless. He knew what had happened, and he did not care. Glorious light was pouring over Remus, and he could see Tonks waiting at the edge of the clearing, her arms folded and her face bright, carefree. James was next to her, and he waved insanely, beaming his head off—he looked so young, bloody hell he looked _so _young—and yes, there was Sirius, a crooked smile on his face.

"Oi, Moony!" Sirius hollered. "What in Merlin's name are you waiting for? Come home, you sod."

"Sirius," Tonks' clear voice berated him, "let him take his time!"

But Remus did not want to take his time anymore. He raced towards them, joyously and wonderfully, and he embraced them all, sobbing with the beauty of it all as they led him towards something lovely and green—he thought he could see Lily through the haze—and Tonks had his hand and was whispering,

_Remus, Remus, be at peace._

And for the first time in decades, he was.


End file.
